Dear Commons Community,

John King, New York State’s Commissioner of Education, issued a warning that results on new standardized tests based on the Common Core Curriculum will not be very good.  The results are due on Wednesday, August 7^th but early information is that the results may be disastrous for some school districts including New York City.  The New York Daily News reported that:

“State education officials will drop a bomb on thousands of city kids and parents Wednesday when they release scores from the controversial and tougher reading and math exams.

State Education Commissioner John King sounded the alarm for disastrous results with a letter sent to principals Friday afternoon.

“Scores are expected to be significantly lower than the 2011-’12 scores,” he wrote, adding that principals should use the scores “judiciously” when making decisions about whether to fire teachers.

The state test scores are used in decisions to promote students, award bonuses to principals and fire teachers. This year, for the first time, the tests were tied to national standards known as Common Core.

City and state Education officials have predicted for months that scores would fall by about one-third on the tougher tests — in part because city schools have not yet received a curriculum aligned to the new standards.

But city Education Department sources said Friday that the drop could be even worse than expected.”

Blame for these results will be placed on teachers and principals but should be directed to education policy makers at the federal and state levels who insisted upon rushing into the Common Core.  It makes perfect sense that you implement a curriculum before you test students on it.  But no, policy makers are interested in scoring political points no matter what and then use testing as a stick to embarrass public education.

Tony